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Elections for Mayor in Detroit, New York and Boston turned more on class than race this month as multi-ethnic coalitions focused on economic recovery. With further help unlikely to come from Washington, are America's big cities now on their own? Also, tornados slam the Midwest, and how recycling and re-use drive the global economy.

Detroit, New York and Boston are very different cities with something in common: local politics are undergoing historic change. This month, all three elected populist new mayors, who focused on unemployment and income inequality. Race wasn't an issue at all. In New York, Bill de Blasio campaigned against what he called the "two cities" presided over by his billionaire predecessor Michael Bloomberg. In Boston, the white union leader, Marty Walsh, got crucial support from minority candidates and won with a multi-racial coalition. In Detroit, Mike Duggan became the first white mayor elected in a black-majority city in 40 years. Big cities like these are America's economic engines, but two-thirds have yet to recover after the Great Recession. Washington is no longer leading the way, so voters are turning to City Hall. We look at the opportunities and the challenges lying ahead.

"In an age of conspicuous consumption, the global recycling business has taken on the burden of cleaning up what you don't want and turning it into something you can't wait to buy." That's from a new book about an essential aspect of globalization that's mostly hidden from view. Adam Minter, Shanghai correspondent for Bloomberg World View and a familiar voice on this program, is author of Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade, about an industry that supported generations of his own family.